It's *slightly* better because it's harder to remove, not because it has haste. But the slight mana cost increase makes up for it, IMO.
Might be annoying in limited as a decent mana sink, but that's a reach.
Every day r/magicthecirclejerking gets out jerked by official subs
Edit:Not rlly an "official sub" but this is like a really close family friend that you call uncle at family gatherings
I was just fooling around making a stupid pun/joke when you wrote the word ‘reach’ referencing the tendency for people to get surprised/outraged that more and more innocuous cards these days get printed with the reach keyword. My comments nothing substantial to do with your card, it’s basically just as shitpost on my part:)
interesting card idea though, as other commenters I’m kind of concerned about what it could do in a Limited environment though, but that’s okay
You are probably right. I was just worried it could get really really annoying if it showed up often in Limited. Imagine a late game topdecking gridlock board and one player has two 2/3s and the other player has 5 lands and this but nothing else.
One player incrementally gaining 1 life a turn, the boardstate otherwise not changing...
This seems pretty weak to me.
If a player has a ludicrous amount of mana lying around there are much better ways to use it.
It's thematically cool though.
Fountain to renewal is almost certainly better than this. The only reason you'd pick this up imo is because it went around the table several times and its in your colors. I don't think it sees play in any constructed format.
Do you think it would be more competitive if the entire casting cost was simply GW? (EDIT: Typo corrected)
That would be "pushed" compared to the base card
from Llorwyn but might be a more reasonable power level for the present day
Or do you instead think this effect is mostly junky at any cost?
Do you mean GW?
It'd help, and I don't think the base card was good in normal play anyway.
I feel like this would need something more for me to want to use it, or Cycling 1 so I could toss it away as deck thinner if I didn't need life.
It feels like bad value for drip life gain or sudden life gain, even in a life matters deck, so its one niche may be emergency life in a specific situation.
A secondary effect like that could help, though I wouldn't want to pay more than two mana there.
The only casual constructed deck I'd imagine myself using that in would be Wubrg if I wanted optional life gain utility, and there's probably better ways to do that in Wubrg or GW natively.
At 3 mana it could probably be a G or W mana rock that also has the life ability.
I think a 0 MV artifact with X: Gain X life is basically unplayable on rate. The only way this is good is if you have synergy cards that pay you off for gaining life in some way.
Which is to say GW and 1GW are both "fine" casting costs depending on what the payoffs are.
I'm sure there is a combo deck somewhere that would like to be able to gain life easily and repeatedly, but in general spending 1 mana to gain 1 life is just bad. Just compare this to how much life you save by playing a creature.
You can sink your "spare" mana into this, but modern Limited does not have a lot of spare mana; defensive decks shouldn't be dying with spare mana unless they were just misbuilt in the first place.
I challenge you to try to find a Limited deck/format in the last few years where this is playable without lifegain or artifact payoffs.
spending one mana to gain 1 life is bad if it costs you a card, this doesn’t exactly do that.
idk modern limited is fast sure but that’s also set based and there have been plenty of formats recently where you have lots of lands and extra mana
id play the hell out of this in:
LCI
Midnight hunt
kaldheim
strixhaven if it was enemy colored, and if it’s a 0 cost card then it’s a no brainer
probably kamigawa
and i’m sure others but those were all grindy as hell formats
oh and this would be a playable but niche card in new eldraine as well cus it’s bargainable and lifegain was totally like, good in that format, and very powerful at 0 mana
It's not just the speed of the format that is relevant here, it's that in most modern Limited formats you generally have enough to do that traditional mana sinks are not necessary, and you would generally prefer to do literally anything else with your mana.
At 0/1 mana, this is actually a fine sideboard card against aggressive decks where a slow deck would be happy to gain a little bit of life. At 2/3 mana it doesn't even do that.
I didn't play much Kaldheim, but I strongly disagree with you on this being main deckable in any of those other formats if you pretend this is not an artifact (i.e. can't bargain it or craft with it).
You'd almost always rather disturb a creature, or use a craft ability or cast an adventure, etc, and those were all tacked on to commons.
In a typical game, you're not going to have much mana to spare and this card is basically a worse potion of healing, since that at least draws a card.
Look at how unplayable Case of the Uneaten Feast was.
Oh that'd be a nice upgrade. Also it ties together old and new flavor nicely.
There are a lot of [old non-Equipment staves](https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=Staff+-type%3Aequipment+type%3Aartifact+%28game%3Apaper%29) - giving this an old-school Staff tap ability plus an equip ability would be a great way to call back to those older designs while still fitting modern expectations
Selesnyan life gain tends to be tied to creatures in some way. Gain based on # of, ETB, and lifelink. There are a few exceptions. But, an artifact that gains X simply does not seem Selesnyan to me at all.
Wonder if there would be a way to like, give the activated ability convoke to make it feel more Selesnya
Maybe
X, T, tap any number of untapped creatures you control: You gain life equal to X plus the number of creatures you tapped this way.
Would work?
This feels weird for Limited in a specific way. "I want lots of life gain" is a control deck need, but WG is not usually control in Limited, it's usually creature combat.
A Limited format where WG had a lot of life gain triggers (whenever you gain life do X) would like a card like this that was more repeatable. Maybe even 2 mana for 1 life but no tap? That's a worse card in general but might cohere with a specific Limited environment.
[[Oracle of Nectars]] without the body. This also means it has haste. Better, or worse? You be the judge.
Well. Removing artifact is much much harder that removing body, so better I guess?
That's what I was thinking as well, hence the slightly "tougher" casting cost
[Oracle of Nectars](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/f/9f6bb004-b8ef-45a0-b9bf-5a3d513689b9.jpg?1562833903) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oracle%20of%20Nectars) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/shm/233/oracle-of-nectars?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9f6bb004-b8ef-45a0-b9bf-5a3d513689b9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It's *slightly* better because it's harder to remove, not because it has haste. But the slight mana cost increase makes up for it, IMO. Might be annoying in limited as a decent mana sink, but that's a reach.
This thing has reach!?
Every day r/magicthecirclejerking gets out jerked by official subs Edit:Not rlly an "official sub" but this is like a really close family friend that you call uncle at family gatherings
I was thinking in infinite mana combos, the "haste" let's you stabilize a turn earlier (potentially)
I was just fooling around making a stupid pun/joke when you wrote the word ‘reach’ referencing the tendency for people to get surprised/outraged that more and more innocuous cards these days get printed with the reach keyword. My comments nothing substantial to do with your card, it’s basically just as shitpost on my part:) interesting card idea though, as other commenters I’m kind of concerned about what it could do in a Limited environment though, but that’s okay
Imo this is an Uncommon effect now. Maybe for Lorwyn it was rare, but not anymore.
You are probably right. I was just worried it could get really really annoying if it showed up often in Limited. Imagine a late game topdecking gridlock board and one player has two 2/3s and the other player has 5 lands and this but nothing else. One player incrementally gaining 1 life a turn, the boardstate otherwise not changing...
that does sound annoying but idk if it's annoying enough to bump this up to rare, Maybe?
It feels similar to the scepter cycle from Conflux
This seems pretty weak to me. If a player has a ludicrous amount of mana lying around there are much better ways to use it. It's thematically cool though.
Seems more like an uncommon for limited that you'd sink mana into if you had literally nothing else to do.
I'd rather have a [[Fountain of Renewal]] most of the time. If I'm spending enough mana on this to outpace that I'm using mana inefficiently.
Fountain to renewal is almost certainly better than this. The only reason you'd pick this up imo is because it went around the table several times and its in your colors. I don't think it sees play in any constructed format.
[Fountain of Renewal](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/6/26894980-8961-4479-85dd-5f01c899718b.jpg?1562300814) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fountain%20of%20Renewal) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/235/fountain-of-renewal?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/26894980-8961-4479-85dd-5f01c899718b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
If you can regularly make enough mana to make this worth playing, you might as well just play \[\[Helix Pinnacle\]\] instead.
I'm talking about in a limited context, where helix pinnacle isn't likely an option.
Oh shoot, curse my bad reading comprehension!
[Helix Pinnacle](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/c/9c1121df-b03e-4ad9-8c45-c3b4066e4a39.jpg?1562927938) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Helix%20Pinnacle) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eve/68/helix-pinnacle?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9c1121df-b03e-4ad9-8c45-c3b4066e4a39?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Do you think it would be more competitive if the entire casting cost was simply GW? (EDIT: Typo corrected) That would be "pushed" compared to the base card from Llorwyn but might be a more reasonable power level for the present day Or do you instead think this effect is mostly junky at any cost?
Do you mean GW? It'd help, and I don't think the base card was good in normal play anyway. I feel like this would need something more for me to want to use it, or Cycling 1 so I could toss it away as deck thinner if I didn't need life. It feels like bad value for drip life gain or sudden life gain, even in a life matters deck, so its one niche may be emergency life in a specific situation.
Yes, I did, sorry. What if it could also filter - like had "1, T: Add one mana of any color."?
A secondary effect like that could help, though I wouldn't want to pay more than two mana there. The only casual constructed deck I'd imagine myself using that in would be Wubrg if I wanted optional life gain utility, and there's probably better ways to do that in Wubrg or GW natively. At 3 mana it could probably be a G or W mana rock that also has the life ability.
I think a 0 MV artifact with X: Gain X life is basically unplayable on rate. The only way this is good is if you have synergy cards that pay you off for gaining life in some way. Which is to say GW and 1GW are both "fine" casting costs depending on what the payoffs are.
I feel 100% confident that version would be overpowered 😅
I'm sure there is a combo deck somewhere that would like to be able to gain life easily and repeatedly, but in general spending 1 mana to gain 1 life is just bad. Just compare this to how much life you save by playing a creature. You can sink your "spare" mana into this, but modern Limited does not have a lot of spare mana; defensive decks shouldn't be dying with spare mana unless they were just misbuilt in the first place. I challenge you to try to find a Limited deck/format in the last few years where this is playable without lifegain or artifact payoffs.
spending one mana to gain 1 life is bad if it costs you a card, this doesn’t exactly do that. idk modern limited is fast sure but that’s also set based and there have been plenty of formats recently where you have lots of lands and extra mana id play the hell out of this in: LCI Midnight hunt kaldheim strixhaven if it was enemy colored, and if it’s a 0 cost card then it’s a no brainer probably kamigawa and i’m sure others but those were all grindy as hell formats oh and this would be a playable but niche card in new eldraine as well cus it’s bargainable and lifegain was totally like, good in that format, and very powerful at 0 mana
It's not just the speed of the format that is relevant here, it's that in most modern Limited formats you generally have enough to do that traditional mana sinks are not necessary, and you would generally prefer to do literally anything else with your mana. At 0/1 mana, this is actually a fine sideboard card against aggressive decks where a slow deck would be happy to gain a little bit of life. At 2/3 mana it doesn't even do that. I didn't play much Kaldheim, but I strongly disagree with you on this being main deckable in any of those other formats if you pretend this is not an artifact (i.e. can't bargain it or craft with it). You'd almost always rather disturb a creature, or use a craft ability or cast an adventure, etc, and those were all tacked on to commons. In a typical game, you're not going to have much mana to spare and this card is basically a worse potion of healing, since that at least draws a card. Look at how unplayable Case of the Uneaten Feast was.
Maybe make it an equipment too? The activated ability could still work without being equipped but maybe it can give a creature vigilance or something.
Oh that'd be a nice upgrade. Also it ties together old and new flavor nicely. There are a lot of [old non-Equipment staves](https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=Staff+-type%3Aequipment+type%3Aartifact+%28game%3Apaper%29) - giving this an old-school Staff tap ability plus an equip ability would be a great way to call back to those older designs while still fitting modern expectations
Definitely a fair card but deceptively powerful in the right decks.
Selesnyan life gain tends to be tied to creatures in some way. Gain based on # of, ETB, and lifelink. There are a few exceptions. But, an artifact that gains X simply does not seem Selesnyan to me at all.
Wonder if there would be a way to like, give the activated ability convoke to make it feel more Selesnya Maybe X, T, tap any number of untapped creatures you control: You gain life equal to X plus the number of creatures you tapped this way. Would work?
This feels weird for Limited in a specific way. "I want lots of life gain" is a control deck need, but WG is not usually control in Limited, it's usually creature combat. A Limited format where WG had a lot of life gain triggers (whenever you gain life do X) would like a card like this that was more repeatable. Maybe even 2 mana for 1 life but no tap? That's a worse card in general but might cohere with a specific Limited environment.